


not so different

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Meetings, Helping Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Past Violence, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: A quiet night at the monastery leaves some peoples’ minds to spin. One boy’s nightmares have caught up to him, and Lysithea takes it upon herself to check if he’s okay.Somehow, Cyril makes her realise that she isn’t doing alright either. The two bond over their pasts, and find comfort in one another.
Relationships: Cyril & Lysithea von Ordelia, Cyril/Lysithea von Ordelia
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	not so different

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celicalms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celicalms/gifts).



> cyril is traumatised. im sorry

Quiet muttering could be heard from somewhere down the corridor, snapping Lysithea’s attention from the book in her grasp. It was a terrified voice: half a whisper, half a whine. The very sound of it made her skin prickle.

It wasn’t common for anybody else to be awake at this time — in the dead of night when Lysithea was used to prowling Garreg Mach’s corridors alone, stealing away to the library to pick up yet another book to study war tactics.

She turned, seeing a figure sitting on the floor at the end of one hallway, illuminated only by the dim, flickering candlelight. Their body was small, and skinny, but they cast a shadow as huge as a beast against the brick wall they sat against. Curled up into a ball, cradling their knees against their chest, they slumped into a corner and muttered quietly. The sight chilled Lysithea, making her lower the book to her side.

Wariness overcame her first. She always grew concerned at matters out of the ordinary. Seeing somebody sitting crying to themselves down a dark and empty corridor at 2am in the morning filled her with a dread that made her muscles freeze in place. Was she witnessing a ghoul? Had somebody been driven to madness? She didn’t know.

Despite her every inhibition screaming otherwise, Lysithea began to approach. At this hour Garreg Mach was eerily silent, and her footsteps cried out like cannonfire against the chilly corridor she walked down.

At the bottom sat a boy. A teenager, no older than herself, and dressed not in the soldiers' uniform, nor even pyjamas, but instead in rags. Chocolate-brown hair fell handsomely around his head in loose, lazy curls; for a moment, Lysithea was stricken with an image of Claude, but she quickly shook it off. No, the angle to this boy’s jaw was rounder, his cheeks more full.

But there was something else about this boy that reminded Lysithea of Claude. The closer she stepped, the more she heard his voice, finding that the mutters were in another language. It certainly wasn’t the language of Fódlan; the words twisted around his tongue in a smooth, rhythmic way, unlike the stilted tones of her mother tongue. Yet the words sounded similar to something she’d heard before, hissed under the breath of the Golden Deer leader.

_Almyran._

And then it hit her. The newest member of the Golden Deer; the boy brought in from Garreg Mach’s staff — once a servant of Rhea and now an archer, fighting alongside them. She knew of nobody else from Almyra, particularly not anybody with the same adorable curls, nor the same skinny frame.

But… why in Fódlan was he still wearing rags?

Curiosity, sadness, and an overwhelming concern drove her forwards, approaching the boy on the floor. She recalled a name: something Almyran. Something that Claude had cheered happily upon seeing him — a handsome name.

Her voice came out smaller than anticipated. “Cyril...?”

He turned towards her, eyes looking terror-stricken, with pinprick pupils ablaze in fiery irises. The expression that was shot at her was like one of a wounded animal, tears streaking his face, and Lysithea felt her knees taking her downwards to kneel before the boy.

What was she doing? She'd never felt concerned for anybody like this before — never felt her brow furrow, her hand reaching out to touch his shoulder as if by instinct. Especially not with a _stranger._

“Are you alright…?” she asked. Inside, she somewhat cursed herself; what was she getting into? She’d never been the greatest shoulder to cry on — all her friends had told her that. She was straightforward, no-nonsense, and in no way _apt_ at comforting the wounded. With her dark magic, she could fell her enemies with one quick spell, but she’d simply never had the empathic touch that came with white magic.

Despite being borderline strangers, having only had mere glimpses of each other from war meetings and across the monastery in their youth, Cyril’s pupils dilated as he searched Lysithea’s face. Whatever he found within must have been soft, or trustworthy, for when he opened his mouth, he spilled his woes.

 _“I can’t do this,”_ he whispered, in Fódlanese this time.

Lysithea’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Can’t do what?” she asked. She placed her book — a heavy, leather-bound tome — upon the floor, and sat down on it. “You… can tell me. If you want.”

Cyril regarded her silently for a moment, moisture rising to his eyes. But he turned, facing Lysithea and swallowing hard.

“The war,” he responded, voice wobbling. “It’s too much like before. All the stuff I thought I’d forgotten is comin’ back…” His eyes became glazed over again, and he gripped onto his rough-spun shirt in white-knuckled fists.

Lysithea felt her throat begin to close. _Too much like before? All the stuff he’d forgotten?_ What had this poor boy been through?

“Do you wanna… talk about it?” she asked. “The stuff you’ve been through?”

Cyril shook his head. “There was too much fire. Too many weapons, and soldiers. I don’t wanna see ‘em again, not when they killed my—” He stopped, taking a deep, shaken breath.

“It’s okay,” Lysithea whispered, rubbing his arm and trying her best to be soothing.

What was this? In all of her years, Lysithea had never felt anything like it — her heart heavy in her chest. 

“I… know what you mean,” she admitted, speaking for the first time the fears that had plagued her for so long.

It seemed to strike a chord with Cyril. “Ya do?” he asked back, eyes flickering wildly between each of Lysithea’s own.

She took a breath, panic beginning to lace her blood. Was she really about to admit this to a stranger? The fact she’d experienced similar anguish: the pains of past experiments, the fear flooding her brain upon seeing dungeon cells and corpses strewn across the floor—

 _No._ She would not let those feelings resurface.

“I do. All the death of this war. It’s…” She felt her eyes grow hot, and she looked up to the hulking shadow that Cyril’s body cast upon the wall to blink back her tears. “It gets to me too.”

Cyril gazed sadly at her, but seemed calmer. His shoulders relaxed, and he cocked his head.

She cleared her throat. “So… would you like to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “It’s just… the war against Almyra. That’s how I ended up in Fódlan. They told me it was safe here — that _I’d_ be safe here — but now I’m being thrown into battles just like I was back home.” 

Listening to his words, low and melodic, Lysithea couldn’t help but feel sympathy. Perhaps even empathy. She wasn’t used to such feelings — nobody ever came to her for comfort anymore — but as her fingers tightened around the boy’s arm listening to his pain, she felt something lighten her heart which had once felt so dark.

Looking into his face and losing herself in his words, a memory hit her. The cages deep in the dungeons of Those Who Slither in the Dark, with faces peering through the bars. Small fingers, feeble, with large and vulnerable eyes; other children, just like her, fearing for their lives. When Lysithea looked into Cyril’s frantic eyes, with his concerned eyebrows and trembling lips, all she could see were the faces of those children.

Frightened, like her. Put through too much too young, and now thrust back into the thick of their buried trauma.

Granted, Lysithea had never been through a war. She hadn’t been in battle before — her parents not killed by a conflict she’d played no part in — but somehow, she could relate. His tales were horrific, reliving his worst nightmare, but Lysithea could almost see herself as his words conjured images to her mind.

She had witnessed children perish from their wounds, from their frail bodies put through too much physical stress. Every morning she would awake to a new body lying lifeless in their cell, left to wonder whether she would be next. To see soldiers lying lifeless on the battlefield would dredge up such memories; watching her enemies tortured, their deaths slow and painful.

She hated it. While she ploughed through battles all the same, trying to push back the echoes of her past, hearing Cyril’s fears made her realise.

She and Cyril… They weren’t so different after all.

Cyril was handsome, Lysithea realised suddenly. Despite grief and fear being etched into his features, he was cute. Face youthful, yet mature, looking as though he could effuse a cocky charm if he tried.

“Sorry,” he sighed at last. “Ya don’t need to be hearin’ all this.”

“No, no!” Lysithea leapt to reassure him. “It’s fine, honestly. If you need to talk, then…” _I’ll be here for you? I’ll listen?_ What was it people said in these situations?

“Thanks,” he replied, looking a little glum. She knew that feeling. After spiralling, after breaking down, after crying and punching her pillows and letting it all out, Lysithea was often overcome by a dark, bleak stormcloud of sadness.

She thought she’d better change the subject. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you wearing your servant’s uniform?”

He blinked rapidly and looked down to his clothes. A sort of mortification overcame his handsome features. “I… I don’t…” He picked at the hem of the shirt with shaking fingers. “I don’t wanna be a fighter anymore. I was hopin’... if I could pretend to be a servant again… I wouldn’t haveta fight anymore.”

One word came to Lysithea’s mind — one her mother would mutter sympathetically at her upon seeing her sad or wounded. _Bless._

She took both of his hands in her own, feeling the trembling muscles. She had never been great at comforting others, but her instinct was telling her to seek out his warmth — to feel him against her, as a human. As a person. As a friend.

Yet why was her heart yearning for something more? The concern she felt — the heat beneath the skin of her fingertips; she had never experienced anything like it, but she found that she enjoyed it.

“I’m Lysithea, by the way,” she told him. “Lysithea von Ordelia.”

“I know.” Such a timid smile curled Cyril’s handsome lips — one that created creases around his cheeks but looked so endearing nonetheless. The words that left his mouth took her by surprise, so much so that she felt herself smile back. “I’ve known since ya first joined here, as a student.”

“Y-you have?” Why did that surprise her? She hardly thought herself worth paying any attention to.

Cyril nodded in return. “I dunno. There was always something… pretty about ya. Even if there was a sorta sadness behind your eyes. I hope that’s okay for me to say.”

Lysithea hadn’t expected that. She was… pretty!? And even more so: her inner worries were so overt upon her face? How could they be, when she had hardly known of them herself before tonight? Her response left her lips without her permission — before she could stop them: “Maybe we’re more similar than we think.”

Innumerous emotions flickered across Cyril’s face; surprise, confusion, wariness, before an embarrassed blush overcame them all. His hands squeezed hers back. It was comforting. “Thanks,” he said bashfully. “And, thanks for hearin’ me out. It really helped. Sorry for wastin’ your—”

“You haven’t wasted my time at all!” she fired back at him, trying to keep her tone light. She’d been told more than once that she came across as aggressive rather than passionate sometimes. “Honestly, you haven’t,” she tried again, softer. “Do you wanna… talk more about it?”

He regarded her for a moment through those eyes — so sad, yet glimmering with hope. “Lysithea von Ordelia,” he whispered.

Her name rolled off of his tongue so wonderfully in his handsome voice — the voice that, she’d found, she could listen to for hours on end. “Yes…?” she replied, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

“I’d love to talk more about it. But only if you tell me about what’s buggin’ you too.”

She pressed her lips together, a smile working its way across them. “Sure.” She squeezed his hands tighter. “Let’s talk somewhere a bit nicer though, shall we?”


End file.
